Thursday, April 05, 2012

FIRST LOOK: Maiden flight of the India's 2nd Indigenous AEW&C

DRDO Statement: Maiden flight of the second fully modified aircraft for the indigenously developed Indian Airborne Early Warning and Control System (AEW&C) was held at 1930 IST on 4th April 2012 at the San Jose dos Campos in Brazil. The necessary Mission systems & components including the dummy AAAU (Active Antena Array Unit) are successfully fitted onboard Embraer EMB 145I aircraft.

This marks an important milestone in the AEW&C program as this aircraft will be delivered in June 2012 to India. The other mission systems will then be integrated on to the aircraft and Mission System flight trials are likely to commence from Nov 2012.

Everything is from Embraer: plane, radar casing and flight management. What DoDo claimed to be Indian : radar and mission systems I mean, are the most complex things to make. I hope DODO doesn't try to reinvent the wheel and provide sub standard system.

Embraer does not produce AEW&C components such as the radar and the specific mission systems, it has just provided the platform (ERJ 145) and the required structural modifications required to house the AEW&C systems and sub-systems. This project is akin to the the the "Erieye AEW&C" where a SAAB built Erieye radar and other systems have been fitted on to an Embraer R-99A platform.

There is no AEW&C in operation or even in the prototype phase which happens to be made by Pakistan. The Pakistani Air force has bought the Saab 2000/Erieye platform where the Swedish defense giant Saab's Erieye AEW&C system has been fitted onto a Saab 2000 turboprop platform. It is not an indigenous effort and these two articles are in no way identical except for their operational footprint and the role that they are supposed to play, which in this case is to supplement the much more capable EL/W-2090 already in operation with the IAF.